Richard Hermann: U.S. should use oil to tame Vladimir Putin’s plans

Wednesday

Mar 19, 2014 at 9:38 AMMar 19, 2014 at 9:38 AM

By Richard Hermann

Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat recently for comparing Vladimir Putin’s thuggish land grab of the Crimea to Adolf Hitler’s incursion into Czechoslovakia’s Sudentenland in late 1938. While invoking Hitler as a model for any contemporary outrage is dangerous ground for any politician (viz. Sarah Palin’s many misadventures into history), this time Clinton was right on the mark.Putin is not yet (and hopefully never will be) the monster that Hitler was, but when it comes to territorial aggrandizement under the pretext of protecting Russians and Russian speakers, there is little difference between this former KGB agent and Der Führer. The West is well-advised to re-read its history of the Austrian Anschluss, the takeovers of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, the joint invasion (with the USSR) of Poland and the culmination of Hitler’s land-grab policy in Operation Barbarossa, the June 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union.The popular misconception making the Washington rounds of politicians, the press and the pundits who cover them — largely by parroting the formers’ press releases — is that the U.S. and the West cannot do much. Freezing visas and assets and kicking Russia out of the G-8 will do nothing to make Putin stop trying to achieve the same geopolitical goals that have obsessed Russia for a thousand years. He needs to be hit hard where it hurts — in his pocketbook.Russia earns the bulk of its foreign revenues from the sale of oil and gas to Eastern Europe and the European Union, nations that have developed a dangerous dependency on Russian fossil fuels. This is where the U.S. now holds the high cards. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) announced last October that the U.S. had surpassed Russia to become the world’s number one producer of natural gas. EIA predicts that, by next year, we will jump ahead of Saudi Arabia to become the world’s leading oil producer as well.This is a stunning reversal that gives us a significant advantage vis-à-vis both our allies and enemies. Our sudden fossil fuel abundance could make Putin sit up and take notice, perhaps even think twice before continuing with his dream of re-creating a Greater Russia. After 40 years of being victimized by the oil weapon, we can now use it to our advantage. We have the capacity now to substitute our energy resources for those that Europe buys from Russia.To get there, Congress should immediately repeal that section of the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975 that bans the sale of oil to foreign countries. Exporting U.S. oil and gas to a thirsty Europe (the EU relies on Russia for 40 percent of its fossil fuel) and providing Europeans with a stable source would have a profound effect on Russia’s economy and is something that could be implemented fairly quickly.Energy as a foreign policy tool has a long history of effectiveness. From FDR’s post-Yalta (a Crimean city, by the way) agreement with Saudi Arabia that locked in the “American Century” to the Middle Eastern oil embargoes of the 1970s to our drive for energy independence, global politics has often turned on the control and supply of oil.This time is no different.Richard Hermann is a part-time Canandaigua resident and Canandaigua Academy graduate. Email him care of Messenger Post Media at messenger@messengerpostmedia.com.